By John Krause — Admit it, when you see a hipster roll up to a stoplight on their bike and then pass right through, it raises your blood pressure a measurable amount. There’s nothing worse than some clown riding his fixie making the whole world hate those scofflaw bicyclists. Or is there?

Let’s be clear, I hold bicyclists to the same standard as other people when it comes to following the law. This post isn’t an apology for bicyclists behaving badly, it is, rather, an examination of the exaggerated rhetoric directed at them and, by extension, other bicyclists too.

Find the comment section on a blog post relating to car/bike relations and you are virtually guaranteed to hear about the litany of ways in which cyclists abuse their fellow road-sharers. Wrong way down one-way streets, not stopping at stop signs, slowing down traffic by taking up too much space on the roadways. Judging by the vehemence with which some people berate the wayward rider you might think thousands of people are being killed on our roads each year.